


Tick Of The Clock

by QuinnyBee



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, blood mention (not by name but covering my bases), possible True Pacifist Route spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-15 00:37:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10547050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuinnyBee/pseuds/QuinnyBee
Summary: The thing about living on borrowed time is, eventually it runs out.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Quasi-inspired by some recent Post-Pacifist Flowey meta by @simonsoys on tumblr
> 
> **Possible Spoilers For True Pacifist Route**

The thing about living on borrowed time is, eventually it runs out.

By this point, he's died hundreds of times. Thousands, maybe. Enough that the idea of death doesn't strike fear in his lack of a heart anymore, at any rate. But all of those had been so...messy. Death, in his mind, was something loud and formulaic and clinical; quick as a knife between the ribs and twice as cold. He never expected it to be any other way. But now bit by bit things slow and fade to grey around the edges when he isn't looking. Before he thinks to wonder why, he's sleeping more and talking less and then...

And then he's waking up on the ground rather than rooted into it. Above him is the hole in the mountain that Chara always called the Singing Cave and his father called the Oculus. It's raining on the surface and he can hear the rustle of it as it falls on the rocks overhead.

“Finally awake, sleepybones?”

The voice makes his heart seize in his chest, recognition overshadowing the realization that he once again has both of those. He sits up too fast and his head swims; everything feels heavy and light at the same time, like his body and mind haven't synced up yet. As his vision clears, all he can see is Chara. They're sitting on their knees a few feet away, the sketchbook propped up in their lap showing a half-finished drawing of a flower. They smile at him, head cocked a little to one side and lips shut to hide the gap in their teeth. They look just like he remembers them.

“You must have slept badly,” Chara says. “You look like you're still tired.”

He is, but it's fading as the fog in his mind burns off. He looks down at his hands, small and white and fuzzy, and laughs a little without knowing why. “Was it really all just a bad dream?” he asks, partly to Chara and partly to no one.

Chara sighs and shakes their head. “Never that simple, Az,” they say quietly. 

He looks back up at them, confused, but it doesn't seem like they're planning to elaborate. Instead, they flip their sketchbook closed and stow it in their bag before standing up. They stretch and wiggle their bare feet in the flowers, smiling without hiding their teeth this time. There's a knee-high crust of dark yellow mud caked on their legs, he notices as they come over to stand above him. Close up their eyes look as tired as he feels, bruise-rimmed and shot red with irritated veins. He can see a smudge of something reddish-brown not quite wiped away from the corner of their mouth; when they grin at him, there's more of the same settled along their gums and in the spaces between their teeth. They look just like he remembers them. Chara extends a hand to him.

“Home?” they ask. “Mother and Father will be waiting for us.” A small jolt of panic shoots through him at this. He opens his mouth to protest, the broken Barrier and the promise of his parents finally having long lives well lived in fresh air flashing in his mind. Chara shakes their head at him and clarifies, “No, not now. Will be. Future tense. Far future tense. But they will. So?” They flex their fingers to beckon him and he hesitates.

He thinks about the things he knows now, the things he'd forgotten on purpose and forced himself to remember. He thinks of what he told Frisk not long ago, about Chara maybe not being the great person he'd always thought they were. Then again, whisper the long-reset worlds built from fire and dust and broken lives, maybe the same thing could be said about him. He reaches out and takes Chara's hand.

“Home sounds good,” he agrees.


End file.
